EU: Police and Criminal Justice Measures

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will indulge me if I repeat a quotation that I used some time ago in your Lordships’ House from the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who said:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.

As the final Back-Bench speaker in this debate I take his advice to heart. I have nothing more to add to the debate, and I have taken almost everything away from the speech that I would have made if I had spoken earlier. Of course, that does not guarantee perfection, but it might result in brevity.

I will say a word about the question that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, raised—and I am sorry that he had to scratch from the debate. On 15 July, the Home Secretary was asked the same question by Mark Reckless MP. She answered:

“I do not believe that opting back into these measures would trigger a referendum under the powers that the Government have”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/13; col. 783.]

Note the words “do not believe”. We do not want the Government’s best guess on this—we want certainty. Are the Government incapable of interpreting their own European Union Act 2011? If so, I am astonished. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, can reassure us on this point.

I have much sympathy for part of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on which he is choosing not to divide the House. It takes the Government properly to task for their cavalier attitude towards—and I might say disdain for—your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee in waiting until today, of all days, to publish their response to its report. As a former chair of that Select Committee, I felt outraged. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, is initiating an inquiry in his committee into the role of national parliaments in the European Union. This Government, who never cease to trumpet the urgent need for closer parliamentary involvement in EU affairs, must cease to betray their spoken intentions with actions that undermine them. I venture to speculate that, had the Motion been set for a later date, we would still be waiting for the Government’s response. They have been panicked into producing it, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on having applied the necessary shock treatment with the wording of his amendment.

Of course, the Government’s Motion refers to a set of circumstances that we on these Benches do not accept. We do not start with the premise that the UK should ask for a block opt-out under Protocol 36—least of all when there is no certainty that our seeking to opt back into measures deemed to be in our interest will meet with the approval of our European partners. The Select Committee’s warning that a blanket opt-out would damage our internal security and the administration of criminal justice has fallen on deaf ears, despite the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, emphasised in his speech, the committee reached its conclusion after listening to the expert views of leaders in the legal, law-enforcement and prosecutorial professions.

In order to opt back into the measures they need never have opted out of, the Government will now opt out of everything and hope for the best. If ever there was a risk of seeing several healthy babies thrown out with the bathwater, this is it. Of course, that is what the wilier and wilder Eurosceptics are itching to see happen. They are happy to support the blanket opt-out, but for them the greater prize would be the failure of the Government to achieve the opt-back-into some if not all of the 35 measures listed in Cm 8671. The Government, with their unwarranted optimism that they will secure from their European partners a successful opt-back-in, risk damaging our national interest and humiliating themselves.

Why does the Prime Minister insist on a wholly unnecessary risk? We know why. It has little if anything to do with improving our internal security or the administration of justice. It has much to do with the security of the Prime Minister and the administration of his divided party. Is that how we must now define “national interest”? The Government risk writing a shameful page in the history of our relations with our European partners if they go on in their current manner on this matter. I believe firmly that the Government have lost the plot—and tonight, they have certainly lost the argument.

Immigration: Eurostar

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising that point. I understand that the German railways are already planning this and that there might be services from late 2015, so we have some time. He is right to point to the problems because of the confines of the concourse at St Pancras and other places, and the need to make sure that we can sort this matter out in the country of origin. That is relatively easy when you are talking about Brussels, Lille and London. It is considerably harder in the case of trains coming from a number of different stations in Germany. At that point different options will have to be looked at, but we have at least three years to do so.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, I declare an interest, having been through the tunnel over 1,500 times, getting to work here and going home again, and indeed having lived to tell the tale. The Minister said that the Government would be trying to set up a system whereby the border agency’s immigration controls would be conducted in Brussels. He must be aware that this system works extremely well in Paris; it saves a lot of time and there is absolutely no delay arriving in St Pancras. I hope that he will look into this and tell us what the problem is. They are very friendly people. This morning when I came through I was asked by the immigration officer what I was planning to do with the House of Lords Reform Bill. I declined to share my views with him, in the same way that at the moment I decline to share my views with the House on that question.

[Lord Henley]

I commend the noble Lord on his diligence in attending this House and the frequency with which he has come through the tunnel. The system in Brussels works pretty well for most trains, in that most people go through the appropriate border security checks. The problem is that a number of people use Brussels to Lille as a commuter line rather than what it was originally designed for, a Brussels to London line. Those people are exempted from going through passport checks by the Brussels authorities and we cannot order them so to do; that is under EU rules. We therefore had to seek with Eurostar some solution to that problem, which does not arise in the case of those coming from Paris. There is similarly not a problem coming from London because, as the noble Lord knows, we do not allow people to use London to Ashford as a commuter route. It is the use of Brussels to Lille as a commuter route on that service that causes the problem.

Police: Vehicles

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure that that is directly relevant to the Question. We are talking about the purchase of vehicles. I want to make it clear that that is a matter for the chief constables and we want them to buy the appropriate cars for the job that has to be done.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, prompted by the very pertinent question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, can I ask the Minister if, when these police cars are no longer considered roadworthy, they are put out to grass and placed at the disposal of the Prime Minister and his friends?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as I made clear in my earlier answer, they are sold for the best possible price.